Could a vacancy tax solve Australia's housing crisis? Canada might have the answer
www.abc.net.au
In 2018, Canada's British Columbia introduced a tax against vacant homes. Three years later, more than 20,000 rentals were back on the market.

My first instinct is “yes” but then I thought about it and I think it’s just going to exacerbate the short-stay problem unless combined with other measures.

  • Anonbal185English
    1·
    1 year ago

    Its definitely not an extreme it’s definately already happening just at a slow pace for the housing we need. Maybe not in Brisbane but there’s precedence.

    Parramatta is about 23km from Sydney and will have 8 150m+ , with the tallest at maximum height 230m. Apparently that 230m was forcibly scaled down due to airport height restrictions.

    Liverpool, a smaller suburb has a few lined up that is over 100m, including 2 over 1km away at the edge of the suburb. Rhodes, Macquarie Park, Chatswood, St Leonards are new suburbs that now have skyscrapers including residential skyscrapers where it didn’t have even 5 years ago.

    If you look here there’s significant development quite a distance from the city especially if you look at the upcoming pipeline of buildings

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Sydney

    And the latest news although not residential, still a step in the right direction - this is nowhere near the CBD by the way.

    https://www.sydneymetro.info/article/contract-awarded-develop-norwest-metro-station-site

    We definitely need more density. Sydney’s new metro network is running at less than half capacity because it runs through detached housing. With a capability of 30 trains per hour it’s a waste without the density I mentioned. It is currently operating at only 15 tph during peak.

    In terms of planning the government here has recently switched from determining density based on how far you are from the city which is common elsewhere in Australia to density tied to amenities. Many near the station are now zoned R3/R4 which is medium to high density despite being an hour from Sydney. This is a good solution it doesn’t preclude anyone from owning detached housing, but don’t expect good public transport on tour doorstep.

    But yes I do realise this is unique to Sydney, we’ve had local clusters so each council has its own commercial hub. We have a non radial transport network so travelling locally is alot easier. And we run express trains from first to last including public holidays and weekends. So some groundwork is already done to support a denser population.